Jimmy Wright and the Woodpecker (part 2)

As much as possible, I avoided Jimmy. I didn't want some snot-nose tagging along behind me. I was a loner or at least pretended to be. Every now and then I would see him and once I noticed he had a black eye. I asked him what happened. "Nothin' , I got hurt." He looked around edgy, like he was hiding. I demanded who smacked him. He kept quiet. Was it your Dad? He shook his head. He didn't want to tell me. I would find out.
If it was his Dad, there wasn't much I could do. If it was a school bully, I would fix him. I hated the bullies, so it wasn't a big deal. I started asking around. The word got out that I had some interest in Jimmy, so it wasn't long before Earl "The Weasel" Watson approached me.
"Heard you got a new boyfriend."
"What do you want, Weasel." We called him Weasel because he looked like a weasel from the neck up. Had a big body, though. Like a cross between a weasel and a hippo. So you didn't want him to get his mitts on you. His problem was that he was so damn slow. In a fight, you could duck around behind him, go take a leak, come back and he would still be turning around.
"Jimmy's your new boyfriend!"
I didn't see it coming and certainly Weasel didn't. He was visibly stunned as blood spurted from his nose and lips. Just to be safe, I stepped to the left, right hand ready for an encore.
"Fuck with that kid and I will give you more medicine."
The "F" word carried a lot of weight in those days. Of course, I had used it before, no less than ten thousand times, I'm sure. But never like that. As a kid I had discovered it early but unlike all the other curse words, it had a nearly religious impact. I never said it with conviction, not like that. I was shaking as I walked away. I had to run, to get back to normal. I thought about what happened for days after. I didn't remember smacking Weasel, it happened so quick. I even felt sorry about it, like it was someone else done it. Never occurred to me it might have been Jimmy. Yep, it gets weirder. I'll tell you about the woodpecker in a moment.

to be continued....